For the past 49 years, the flagship news program of CBS has been the newsmagazine, 60 Minute which was created by Don Hewitt. This CBS newsmagazine set the prescient in investigative journalism; from stories on the wine making Antinori family to discussing the crisis of the supply of ground water, 60 Minutes is an amazing news program. It gave rise to the careers of many journalists; such as Lesley Stahl, Morley Safer, Mike Wallace, Steve Kroft, Scott Pelley, Bob Simon, Andy Rooney, and many others.

Sadly, though, it didn't manage to attract a young audience, one of the many reasons CBS earned the name "The Geriatric Network" and in the mid-1980's CBS created a new newsmagazine meant to attract an audience under 40. The newsmagazine was called "West 57th," named after the location of the CBS Broadcast Center, 524 West 57th Street.

"West 57th" was hosted by Meredith Vieira and John Ferrugia from 1985 to 1989. Bob Sirott and Jane Wallace hosted the show from 1985 to 1988. The correspondents for the show were Karen Burnes, 1988 to 1989, Stephen Schiff,1988 to 1989, Selina Scott, 1988 to 1989, and Steve Kroft from 1987-1989.

This show developed a reputation as a junior version of 60 Minutes and was poorly reviewed by The New York Times which said, "(West 57th) isn't really television, and it certainly isn't journalism; it's video, and it's a mess. Nothing works well except the synthesizer music. It's as if news and entertainment fell into combat and neither side won."

Along with The New York Times, The Christian-Science Monitor also reviewed the show and said, “a ditsy, disco-beat docu-mag for viewers with a short attention span.” After watching some segments of the show, it is hard to tell whether or not this is good journalism.

I compiled a collection of clips that are going to make you question the effectiveness of the show's ability to inform the public about social issues, current events, or possible issues that are relevant to society. Attached is a link to a collected playlist of clips found from "West 57th." The playlist includes the introductory credits, segments, full episodes and advertisements for the show. Some of their interviews are strange in the way that they are done.

For example, Meredith Vieira did an interview with Harrison Ford. While this may seem perfectly okay the interview came with a few conditions. The topics that were off limits were his family, and his personal life; the only other available topic of conversation was his career.

She struggles to get through the interview because of the lack of things to talk about, and midway through the interview Ford, breaks down. He allows her one question which he somewhat avoids answering. Some interviews that the show did were actually quite good.

In an interview, also done by Meredith Vieira about playing in women’s tennis. The interviewee gave answers that provide insight into the dark side of playing tennis. Also, Vieira asks just the right questions in which the answers leave the viewer on the edge of their seat.

While the show was canceled in 1989, the journalistic style is amazing and it could have been just as good as CBS’ major newsmagazine, 60 Minutes. Who knows it could have been a major competitor to the 60 Minutes “spin-off” newsmagazine, 60 Minutes Wednesday.